Mana Pools National Park: A 20-Year Dream, Finally Unpacked

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The call I wasn’t expecting

On Thursday, October 8, at 9:33 pm, I was busy with Chiedza, my AI assistant, polishing up a system I was building. As far as I knew, we were leaving the following morning. I still had time to pack.

Then my phone rang.

De Exploraz: “Hello, are you still coming? We’re about to depart.”

Me: “Depart to where?”

De Exploraz: “Mana Pools, bro.”

Me: “Handiti it’s tomorrow morning here?” (Aren’t we leaving tomorrow morning?)

No. ’Twas that very night. The updated itinerary had been sent in the WhatsApp group.

A wallpaper dream, twenty years later

Back in 2006, when the internet was painfully slow, I found a photograph online that sparked my interest in Mana Pools. There was something about that tree. I made it the wallpaper on my Windows XP computer and kept it there for many months, thinking, “One day kana ndakusenza, ndichaendawo.” (One day, when I’m working and earning, I’ll go there too.)

I still have the pictures.

Twenty years later, I finally booked the trip, with departure scheduled for Friday, October 9. When October came, the long-standing wallpaper dream had an itinerary, a departure date and a WhatsApp group.

Unfortunately, the dreamer wasn’t reading all the messages in that group.

Long story short, I had about two minutes to pack my bags and leave the house. I didn’t even bathe. I later discovered I’d packed mismatched socks, forgotten the soap and shoved in clothes that looked exactly like clothes packed in two minutes.

You can spend eight months paying for a trip and still arrive at departure time unprepared. I’m living proof. 😂

But I made it.

Into the Zambezi valley

By the following morning, we were on the Zambezi escarpment, headed down into the valley. At around 7:32 am, it was already 23°C, with the day’s temperature expected to reach 38°C. The place wasn’t waiting for midday to introduce itself.

I’d gone with a group of strangers. Some would become acquaintances over the course of the trip, and I’d soon discover that many had interesting ways of handling unexpected situations.

We were staying in ZimParks lodgings beside the river, with no fence separating us from the wildlife. Plush accommodation? Not quite. Our lodgings could have done with a few repairs and touch-ups. But I hadn’t come to Mana Pools to inspect the paintwork. Outside were the Zambezi, elephants and hippos whose grunts suggested they owned the place. That was the experience I’d come for.

According to the Zambezi River Authority, the Zambezi begins in north-western Zambia and travels roughly 2,700 kilometres before reaching the Indian Ocean on the coast of Mozambique. Along the way, it flows through Angola, returns to Zambia, follows borders with Namibia and Botswana, then forms the border between Zambia and Zimbabwe before crossing Mozambique. Victoria Falls and Lake Kariba are part of that same journey. Here at Mana Pools, we were beside a river that had already travelled a long way, shaping the floodplain and sustaining the wildlife around us. Beside the Zambezi, the geography suddenly feels very simple: Zimbabwe on our bank, Zambia on the other. There we were, looking across the river at another country.

Mana Pools National Park has a little history tucked into its name. “Mana” means “four” in Shona, referring to four permanent pools: Long Pool, Chine, Chisasiko and Green Pool. They’re remnants of ancient Zambezi channels, left behind as the river changed course. Kariba Dam later altered the river’s flooding patterns, but the pools were here long before it. Our first stop was Chisasiko, where hippos lay mostly submerged, occasionally lifting their heads above the water as if checking who’d arrived. Plenty of large birds were around too, making it the sort of place where a birdwatcher could happily lose track of time.

For me, this was the setup I crave. The bush and animals going about their lives. Give me a chance to see genuinely wild animals in their natural surroundings and I’m in!

Among the wildlife we saw were birds, warthogs, eland, waterbuck, buffalo, hippos, crocs, our fellow primates (monkeys and baboons), hyenas, and lots of impala and elephants. LOTS. Everywhere you went, there’d be impala and elephants.

Some of Mana Pools’ elephants have become famous for standing on their hind legs to reach food higher in the trees. Boswell is one of the best-known examples, and wildlife photographer Chris Fallows has also documented Fred Astaire and other bulls doing it. We saw one of the elephants feeding that way. Seeing an animal that size balance itself like that is quite a sight.

I also had my first up-close encounter with a wild Nile crocodile. I was delighted. Yes, I know that sounds like an odd reaction to a crocodile, but I’d come to see wildlife, and there it was, just a few steps away, while I stood at the water’s edge. A death wish, if you ask me.

Along the way, I found myself asking questions about things I might otherwise have passed without a second look. Prince and Honest didn’t disappoint. Knowledgeable fellas, those two. Take the blue-and-black cloths hanging between trees, for instance. Usingazive, you’d think kune vanoita zvemashavi (If you didn’t know, you’d think someone was practising spirit rituals). They turned out to be tsetse targets, using colour to attract the flies onto an insecticide-treated surface. Simple-looking setup, quite a bit of science behind it.

Then there were the baobabs, some with bark stripped away and deep chunks missing from their trunks. You’d think a tree that massive would be safe. An elephant looks at it and sees a feast. Apparently, baobabs can grow new bark and survive remarkable damage, though repeated digging into the trunk can eventually bring them down, as we saw in Mana Pools.

I like those little discoveries. You go somewhere to enjoy yourself, then come back knowing something you hadn’t even thought to ask before.

Sunsets and a truck with other plans

I’m one of those people who sees a beautiful sunset and immediately wants to capture it. In sunsets, I get my dopamine doses. Mana Pools supplied them generously. The colours over the water, the reflections, the mountains across the river in Zambia. Sometimes I’d take photos, and sometimes I’d just sit and look.

One of our evening game drives took us to a watering spot used by wildlife. Lions favour it too, because animals coming to drink give them opportunities to ambush prey. We hoped to see the sunset and perhaps the lions too.

The sunset cooperated. The lions didn’t.

For the safari drive, we’d switched from our Harare kombi to a truck run by a separate safari operator. Prince and Honest had driven us from Harare; these game-drive vehicles had different drivers. Our safari truck had been having clutch issues. It was a huge thing, very wide and very long, the sort that makes an ordinary Safari Land Cruiser beside it look considerably less impressive. Unfortunately, size doesn’t help much when the vehicle refuses to engage gear.

It got dark. We’d seen no lions, and it was time to head back to our lodgings. The truck refused.

There we were, at a watering spot frequented by lions, in the dark, sitting in an open vehicle that seemed to have planned a “Final Destination” on us.

Now, here’s where the people you travel with become important. This crew, we were quite a wild bunch. We started singing, swapping stories and laughing. The conversation even found its way to my late arrival and mismatched socks. My delaying the departure had initially inconvenienced the group. Now it was entertainment, with everyone laughing it off. Good company.

We also tried being quiet, hoping we’d get to see the lions in the dark. Crazy redefined. Still nothing. Imagine giving the lions both a noisy audience and a quiet audience, and getting no appearance either way.

For a while, we sat there. A dead truck, darkness, poor visibility and the knowledge of where we were. It was fun and scary at the same time. I can’t tell you what everyone was thinking, but I’m fairly sure some prayers and meet-the-maker confessions were offered, albeit silently.

Eventually, help came and the truck got into gear, and we headed back to our lodgings.

I’ve been on many trips, but that incident is one for the records. The people who were strangers when we left Harare were now people with whom I’d spent time laughing in the dark at a watering spot where lions ambush prey. That’s quite an introduction.

A hyena at the braai

The nighttime entertainment didn’t end there.

While we were outside our ZimParks lodgings, waiting for food and chatting, spotted hyenas came. They crisscrossed a stone’s throw from where we were barbecuing. Then we saw one sneaky, brave one approaching the braai area. I stood on the other side of the braai stand with my phone camera ready. In a split second, it grabbed a piece of plastic we’d removed the meat from and dashed away, evidently unable to resist the smell of blood. It was right there, ONE metre away, and we caught it on my phone camera. And in the dark, you could see the glowing eyes of other hyenas in the distance, waiting their turn, I guess.

We were excited, shining our torches towards it; hyenas have a bite pressure of around 1,100 PSI, enough to crush bone. Then the jokes started. In Zimbabwean superstition, witches are said to ride hyenas, much as we ride horses. Some began chanting, “Muroyi! Muroyi!” (Witch! Witch!) Some even added deliberately theatrical imitations of speaking in tongues. It was all joking, of course. We’d gone from waiting for supper to staging an impromptu exorcism beside the braai. The hyena, apparently unaware of the allegations against it, had made off with the meat wrapper.

Mana Pools also had wildlife that didn’t pose for photos. Tecla, one of my fellow travellers, was left itching and scratching after an insect bit her without announcing itself. A ZimParks official said she was bitten by “6pm”, a name given to these invisible tormenters because they’re active around 6pm. No witnesses, no confession, just Tecla dealing with the evidence. We slept under mosquito nets. Simple advice: pack insect repellent. The smaller residents also want to meet you.

Three days and two nights at Mana Pools, and we hadn’t seen any lions or leopards. That sucked. But Mana had one more thing for us.

Mhumhi, the grand finale

On our way out of the park, there by the roadside, were painted wild dogs. Mhumhi. African wild dogs. This was such a big deal. African wild dogs are my second favourite wild animals, after mbizi, zebra, my clan totem.

I hadn’t really expected to encounter them. I’d thought our chances of seeing lions or leopards were higher than our chances of seeing mhumhi.

All that excitement over a sighting, but these were MY animals. The way they live and cooperate has fascinated me for a long time. I love them enough that I named the premium subscription of another system I’m building Mhumhi.

Part of what I loved about Mana Pools was how wild and remote it felt. Dusty roads, no cellphone signal, and bush all around us. The park’s only shop was a little kiosk carrying just the essentials. That simplicity was part of the attraction. If you’re after a proper wilderness experience, this is the go-to place. Bring what you need, including a healthy respect for your neighbours. Some of them have teeth, sharp ones.

The people who made the trip

And to ALL my travelmates, thank you for patiently waiting when I was late and for bringing such a happy collective vibe to the trip. From the singing and storytelling to the laughs in that stubborn truck, you made the whole experience even better. I had such a wonderful time with you. 🤗

And a big thank you to the entire De Exploraz team for putting this trip together. Both drivers, the chef, the helpers and everyone who looked after us deserve their flowers. The itinerary gave us plenty to see and do, the food was lovely, and we had beautiful photos and guidance along the way. You helped turn my 20-year-old wallpaper dream into an experience I’ll remember for a long time. Next Mana trip, please bring us more water and a bigger cooler. That place is hell lite.

Now, the minibus was quieter than it had been on the journey to Mana Pools. Some people slept. Whether they were exhausted from the adventures or simply refusing to witness their return to city life, I can’t say. Me? I was mentally preparing for Harare’s exhausting daily hustle and rat race. At Mana Pools, I’d spent my time watching wildlife. Back in Harare, I’d be toiling for a decent meal and enough data to vent online about adulting, something I didn’t sign up for.

We later heard that, the day after we left, a pride of lions spent hours under trees about 200 metres from our lodgings. They even killed a waterbuck and feasted on it right there. So the lions were available. They’d just given us the middle finger. Ahem, paw. I’ll probably plan another trip to Mana Pools. Besides the intense heat and all the water chugging, I loved it there.

Work can keep you busy indefinitely. There’s always something to build, fix or finish. I know, because I was doing exactly that when the departure call came. But outside work and family responsibilities, there should also be room for things you simply enjoy doing. For 20 years, Mana Pools was a picture on my computer. Now I have my own pictures, memories and stories from there.

Questions about a trip, or a place you’d like me to explore? Get in touch about reader questions and collaborations.